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Subject Nobody is Anybody

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[quote:Zoinkaeon:MV80NTY0NTAzXzgzMTcxMjI0XzMxMzM4QUU=]
another ligottian verse below

[u]This Degenerate Little Town[/u]

[youtube]https://youtu.be/FBca33v8oGM[/youtube]

https://youtu.be/FBca33v8oGM
[i]
The greatest secret
Which appears in no religious doctrine
And is found nowhere

In the world's overburdened library
Of myths and fables
Nor receives the slightest mention
In any philosopher's system
Or scientist's speculation
The greatest secret
Perhaps the only secret
Is that the universe
All of creation
Owes its existence
To a degenerate little town
And if it were possible
To strip away the scenery that surrounds us
To pull up the landscape
Of every planet
To rip away the skies
And shove aside the stars and suns
To tear from ourselves our own flesh
And delve deep into our bones
We would find it standing there eternal
The origin of all things visible
Or invisible
The source of everything that is
Or can be
This degenerate little town
And then we would discover
Its twisted streets
And tilting houses
Its decaying ground
And rotting sky
And with our own eyes
We would see the diseased faces
Peeking from grimy windows
Then we would realize
Why it is such a secret
The greatest and most vile secret
This degenerate little town
Where everything began
And from whose core of corruption
Everything seeps out

From the beginning
If there was a beginning
This degenerate little town
Has become ever more degenerate;
Its streets more twisted
Its houses more tilting
Its ground more decayed
Its sky more rotten
Those faces behind ever more grimy windows
Have become ever more diseased
And in the end
But there can never be an end
For this degenerate little town
No more than an end will ever come
For the worlds that have seeped out of it
For everything we can know
Is degenerate from the beginning
Everything becomes more twisted and tilting
More diseased and decayed
Rotting from the very sky
This is the law of things
If there can be any law
In a universe that has its source and origin
In a degenerate little town
Which has been degenerate from the beginning
If there was a beginning
And will go on with its degeneration
Its ceaseless twisting and tilting
Its disease and decay
Its infinite shades of rottenness

Forever and without end

We cannot help but wonder
In our most perverse moments
What it would be like
To inhabit this degenerate little town
Where the sky is forever dripping its rottenness like rain
To be among those faces
That are diseased faces
Eternally diseased faces
Eternally peeking through the glass of grimy windows
And out into twisted streets
Lined with tilting houses
In a town that is forever degenerating
And will be degenerating forever
We cannot help but wonder
In our most perverse moments
As we look through bleary eyes
And see the stars that seem to form
So many twisting roads through the blackness
Or feel our flesh rotting upon our bones
And yet we can only wonder

We can only whisper

Or cry out in our dreams
"O, where is the way to this degenerate little town?"

There are those among us
Who claim to have seen
This degenerate little town
Although they may be unaware
Of its true nature
There are those who have emerged
From some painful ordeal of the body
Or of the mind
And then begun speaking
Of how they saw in the distance
An outline of crooked houses
Tilting this way and that
Or walked along some twisted street
And felt the ground soft with decay
Beneath their steps
Or even glimpsed those diseased faces
Their skin rough and pale as plaster
Peeking from behind grimy windows
But those who claim to have seen such things
Always seem to tell a somewhat different story
Failing to compose a consistent picture
Of what they may have seen
Or imagine they have seen
And so we stare at them suspiciously

For a moment
And then start to walk away

Leaving them to their lies or their illusions
Which of course are the very essence
Of this degenerate little town

"Where is this place?
This degenerate little town?
What is its name?
And who were its creators?"
Such questions are inevitable
And a matter of course
Whenever a world knowledge
Is attained about anything
Never mind the greatest secret
The greatest mystery
"Are there seasons in the land of this town?
Is there a springtime in which great rains
Pour down day and night from that rotting sky?
Are there sultry summers that lay a
Heavy stillness upon those twisted streets?
And what of its autumn
Which must be so succulent with all the colours of decay?
Do the winters there, in this degenerate little town
Pile their weighty snows upon the roofs of those tilting houses?"
So many question about this secret place
But as long as such questions are asked

And countless answers are offered
The greatest secret will always remain protected
For no questions will ever be asked

No answers will ever be allowed
Concerning those diseased faces
That have gazed forever
Behind the glass of grimy windows

Like every phenomenon
That we cannot fully face
This degenerate little town
Must remain a cult in its essence
And serve as a limit
For such as we care to know
About what is beyond
The blackness of night
Or what is deep in our bones
For like every phenomenon
That we have actually come to face
This degenerate little town
Can only pain us
Adding to our lives
A mere surplus of the pains
We have known so well
Throughout the agonised ages
Of a degenerate creation
But like no other phenomenon
That we have ever faced
This degenerate little town
Under its rotting sky
Standing upon decayed ground
A landscape of a pain
That is like no other

May be our last hope
The only hope we have
Of killing all the hopes
We have ever had

And murdering every mystery
We have ever cherished
So that we may step forth, finally
Into that great shining kingdom
Of which we have always dreamed

It may be quite likely
That we are grotesquely mistaken
To think there is anything special
Anything remarkable at all
About this degenerate little town
Far from being the greatest secret
The worst or the finest of all our dreams
It may be quite likely
The greatest commonplace
The supreme banality
Consider the possibility
Who among us
Has not found themself
Beneath a rotting sky?
A sky broken and rotting
From what has been heaved up to it
During every epic of this earth
This ground that is miles deep
With the decay of anything
That has ever lived upon it
Who has not traveled
Through twisted streets
And under the shadow of houses
Even the straightest of which
If our eyes could only see it
Is veering toward a tilt?
As for diseased faces
They are ever-prevailing

To the point of embarrassment
And so much for this civic marvel
That is beyond the blackness of night
Or resides deep in our bones
Yet if this is the case

As it quite likely may be
What remains for us in a universe
Where there is nothing special
Nothing of any account
Let alone the saving miracle
Of this degenerate little town?

It seems entirely natural that
Should anyone gain full knowledge
Of this degenerate little town
They would deny the truth
Of this greatest, most terrible of secrets
And, as a consequence
As an act of self-protection
Would fabricate some other
Set of circumstances
A more companionable picture
Of the way of things
This would explain so many
Of the deranged idols and beliefs
That have arisen in our world
At least we would be able to account
For the multitudes of Mannequin Saviors
As one might view them
Their faces smooth and serene
Behind display windows
Welcoming the faithful who
Upon their death
Will enter a department-store paradise
Of the most vague and intangible delights
And some mention must be made
Of what might be called
The Sect of the Puppetlands
Whose highly deranged adherents
Posit a transcendent universe
Of infinite and harmless antics
That are imperfectly mirrored
In the chaos and crises of our own world
Which, in any case, will end nicely

When the Great Puppet Play is concluded
In a sweet bedtime of slumber
Until the next show begins
Yet, who would begrudge anyone
The denials or alternate renderings
Of the twisted streets and tilting houses

The diseased faces and grimy windows of
This degenerate little town
Which itself seems so perfectly bleak
So in tune with the world we know
Forever inclined to ever greater degeneracy
That even the few enlightened ones among us
Sometimes doubt it to be real

We sometimes imagine
That we have heard voices
Strange and harsh voices
Faintly calling from beyond
The blackness of night
Or from deep in our bones
And even if there are no actual words
No actual language we know
In which the voices speak
Still there is a terrible understanding
Delivered into our world
That only a few may comprehend
And none would desire
For this understanding
This message of strange harsh voices
From beyond the blackness of night
Or from deep in our bones
Declares that this degenerate little town
That greatest of secrets
Is only a facade
Or a mirage
A picturesque lie
Or illusion
In the guise of twisted streets and tilting houses

All the rottenness and disease which we sense
As the source of all the things we know
Or can ever know
When in fact there is something else altogether
Something which none could comprehend
Or desire to comprehend
Yet which they cannot fail to hear

When it slips through the sounds
Of those strange and harsh voices
When it drifts through
During the briefest moments of silence
And from beyond the blackness of night
Or from deep in our bones
Comes forth as the hollow resonance
Of a most dismal laughter

Even though there is no evidence
That a degenerate little town
Forms the greatest secret
And is the source
Of all the things we know
Its truth and its existence remain assured
And there do seem to be certain indications
Certain aspects and elements of our lives
That in no uncertain terms
Inform us of one fact
Sooner or later we will find ourselves
In this degenerate little town
Whether we wish to go there or not
Because when the sky
Begins to darken
As if rotting before our eyes
And when our bones
Begin to change
Growing soft with decay
We know that all the ways
Of our lives
Have been leading us
And can only lead us
To this degenerate little town
And then we may understand
That everything around us

Everything within us
Has a direct point of contact
To that secret place
That source of all things
Dreams, for instance
The dreams of our sleep
Wherein every mind is destined
To go twisted and tilting
Into lands of swift magic
These dreams alone would make the case
If anything were ever needed
In the way of evidence
These dreams alone
Would put us in close view
Of those grimy windows
Behind which diseased faces
Peek out through the glass
As if they are waiting for
Someone to arrive
As if they are waiting
For everyone, sooner or later
To enter their little town[/i]
[/quote]

Original Message By Thomas Ligotti

[link to youtu.be (secure)]

Nobody is anybody.

Those of us who reside in the Unholy City,
who sprouted out of the blackness of an old root cellar,
or sprayed forth like dark ashes from an unclean chimney,

Those of us who are permanent citizens of the Unholy city,
are neither Angeles nor Demons
Although we are sometimes called upon to play such parts,
for the purpose of some game that has been going on since the world began,
acting out our roles in a drawn out, intricate stage show that we will never understand,
nor ever care to understand.

Nevertheless, we are really not so different from the tourists who sometimes visit our little town,
and sometimes stay with us forever.
Who are also born of the same blackness as we were, as everything was.

Still there is one respect, in which we, the inhabitants of the Unholy City,
diverge from all others in this world,
who are so caught up in the game that is going on,
who identify so completely with the parts they have been given to play in the stage-show universe,
that they actually believe themselves to be somebody or something.

We on the other hand, suffer from no such delusion
We are nobodies. We are nothings.

And even to speak in such terms maybe claiming to much for ourselves.

Which is to say that we are just like everybody else.
While they without ever knowing or suspecting the true facts.
Are just like us.

Pictures (click to insert)





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